Last night I was lucky enough to give a small lecture on academic boycott on behalf of NTL. Because of weather, we moved indoors, but the auditorium was almost full. The mood was good after the boycott decision in the UiS board, and the lecture where I went through the dominant discourses around the issue, looked at the situation now and discussed strategy going forward was very well received.
Among the participants in the room was also a group of international academics who were visiting Trondheim and who contributed perspectives from other countries. A great evening. There were also some new NTL members. The battle now is towards the NTNU board meeting on 18 June.
Below I wil paste a rough draft of my talk. The notes have not been chacked for spelling errors nor anything else, so take it for what it is.
Academic Boycott Strategy and the way forward
1. Know your landscape!
2. what is happening?
3. Focus on impact!
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It is important to know the landscape in which you operate. What many students may not have always realized is how inflamed the issue of academic freedom is among many academic staff.
Academic freedom has been under pressure for decades, through NPM, strategic research areas, tighter budgets, pressure to publish and draw in project funds, and some overzealous managers.
It is therefore very predictable that it will be precisely academic freedom that will become the main argument against an academic boycott of Israel.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to clarify what we mean by the term, and what it is that we are asking the organizations, and I think many have done a good job in the last few months by focusing very hard on the distinction between *institutional cooperation* and *researcher-to-researcher* collaboration.
We can see from the argument, both from the rector here and from the rector at UiO, that one of the strategic moves that are made is often about trying to cloud this difference, to be able to reject boycotts on an unjust basis.
It is a discussion we are familiar with, so, therefore, NTL’s boycott proposal was also about institutional cooperation, and to anchor it even better in principles that are already established in academia, we linked it to research ethics guidelines.
Point 10 of the general research ethics guidelines points out that “Ethical conduct is not only the responsibility of the individual researcher but also of the research institution.” NTNU as an institution has an independent research ethical responsibility and cannot simply point the finger at others – neither individual researchers nor national authorities. The overarching, general guidelines also state that the research must not contribute to harm, that it must counteract global injustice, and comply with international conventions.
The more specific guidelines state, for example, within natural science and technology’s 1st point, 2nd and 3rd sentence that “The research must not be designed so that it comes into conflict with democratic development or international conventions that are supposed to secure peace. The research must not violate the rights enshrined in recognized international conventions on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights. »
There are also several other points in research ethics guidelines that may be relevant.
Then comes the argument along different fronts. One is that it is illegal because academic freedom is enshrined in law.
However, research ethics is also enshrined in law in the Research Ethics Act.
The second is that an *institutional boycott* does not prevent researcher-to-researcher collaboration.
Both Universitetsavisa’s editor and Professor of Law at UiO, Hans Petter Graver attacked NTL’s decision on this basis.
When we moved out and cleaned up, there wasn’t much humility to be found.
Oksholen calls the distinction between institutional and individual boycott a “fig leaf”, and believes that researchers will not dare to make other choices than the institution.
Graver points out how researcher-to-researcher collaboration becomes much more difficult without institutional agreements.
He now insists that even an institutional boycott is an attack on academic freedom because it makes it more difficult for researchers to get funding for larger research projects with the Israeli academic community. There is nothing more to say about that than this: If any decision that affects researchers’ ability to get external funding for research projects is to be characterized as “authoritarian”, “unprincipled” and spawns angry reader posts from Graver, he has to cross his fingers and prepare on many and long days of post writing.
From the funding to NFR (or ERC for that matter) to various “strategic investment areas” at all levels from national (the KI billion) to local at the individual faculty or institute. The possibilities are almost endless. But it is a very innovative (there are perhaps funds for innovation to be found here?) argument to claim that researchers who do not embark on major external projects do not have their academic freedom (in the legal sense even) preserved.
Researchers at universities must have the freedom to choose the direction of their research, and should not be pressured either by managers or politicians to change this. They should also have access to a minimum of individual operating funds to carry out this research (type annuum, for example). The idea that one is less well positioned to take on large external projects in itself constitutes an attack on academic freedom, on the other hand, appears so thin that it approaches homeopathy.
Another common critique is that the boycott is not principled. You get the typical questions, why not boycott China, why not boycott Saudi Arabia etc. – these are authoritarian regimes.
There are two important responses to this: And yeah, they are authoritarian, but having an authoritarian regime is not a breach of international conventions.
Attacking another country and annexing their land to make it part of their own is – like Russia is doing, and is why we boycott them.
And Apartheid is a recognized crime against humanity by the UN, which is why we sanctioned South Africa, and is why we should sanction Israel.
So not sanctioning Israel is not principled! It is treating Israel with a leniency we do not give other countries.
But a more important argument, I believe, is that boycott is not a principle – it is a tool. The principles are the goals we wish to achieve, end the war, end the occupation, and we use tools that can work. And research shows boycotts work better against democracies (Israel, like South Africa, has a democratic system for some of its inhabitants) than authoritarian states. And both the support from Palestinian organizations, and the vehement opposition from the Israeli government, point to this being a potentially effective tool.
That was a little bit about the landscape the debate is going on in, and the most common positions we should be aware of and know the arguments against.
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So what is going on?
I would claim, a quiet revolution has taken place in Norwegian academia:
The University of Southeast Norway, the University of Bergen, Oslomet, NTNU, and Nord University have, for various reasons, decided to end, put on hold, or temporarily not use student exchange agreements with Israeli universities.
The Faculty of Law in Bergen decided to terminate the exchange agreement that the faculty has had with Tel Aviv University in Israel since 2013
The board of OsloMet has subsequently decided to pause cooperation with the University of Haifa. Nor will OsloMet enter into any new agreements with Israeli educational and research institutions.
And today – the UiS board has done the same.
The UiO board voted down a boycott resolution by 6 to 5 votes, in which external representatives were the tongue in the balance. Among internal representatives, employees, and students there was a majority.
Polling suggests a majority support among the Norwegian population for sanctions against Israel.
Then Norway has recognized Palestine as a state.
There is a significant movement in this matter, the mood has shifted strongly in the direction of the Palestinians. The tragic part is that it would take tens of thousands of people killed, a devastated country, and hunger as a weapon against an entire population for us to react.
But we have been successful in moving the center ground on this issue – a question of academic boycott seems a lot less radical now than it did only a short while ago.
So at NTNU – What has happened and what is happening? As I mentioned we at NTL NTNU requested NTNU at our annual meeting in March I think?
It was unanimous and we received no negative feedback from members afterward.
Many employees have signed a national campaign for an academic boycott, and finally, the students created this camp – a great initiative and made their demands to the NTNU board.
There was a discussion at the board meeting in May – based on the students’ 4 demands. There was no decision made there, but it was presented as a briefing matter, and the board rules say that no decisions can be made in such cases.
I know many people were disappointed by this, but I followed the discussion – the meetings are streamed – and there were hopeful developments in the meeting.
Initially, the rector started with an argument that parallels the arguments from the UiO-rector, neglecting the difference between institutional and individual boycotts.
He was however quickly arrested on this by one of the employee members of the board, who is also a member of the academic network for Palestine, and the discussion in the meeting was summed up by the board leader as “There is an agreement that we will not make new institutional agreements with Israeli institutions” in the current situation. As there are no such agreements today that would effectively constitute an institutional academic boycott.
So the task now is to work towards the next board meeting on June 18th. I know the students have kept up the pressure regarding their demands. I know the academic network is sending emails to board members.
The two networks have sent a joint letter to the board, also published in Universitetsavisa today.
Just to say a little about what we have done at NTL. We have followed up the demands from our annual meeting, with a statement from our board, which has been sent to the NTNU board and has been reported in the university newspaper.
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NTL NTNU requests that NTNU’s board now follow up on the conclusion from the briefing case at the previous board meeting, not to enter into new formalized collaborations with Israeli institutions. No such agreements currently exist.
NTL NTNU is also asking NTNU to review the existing collaborations through Horizon Europe to discover whether these are collaborations with individual researchers or have heavy institutional roots.
NTNU’s board should also be clear in its condemnation of the war crimes in Gaza, the destruction of Palestinian universities, and the killing of Palestinian students and academics.
This is in line with the unanimous decision at NTL NTNU’s annual meeting in March this year to cut any formal ties to Israeli universities.
In our view, this is an obligation NTNU has under the research ethics guidelines and the Research Ethics Act.
We support students and academics at NTNU who have helped to keep up the pressure on this matter, and encourage other trade unions and organizations at NTNU to support the demands of the students.
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Other unions at NTNU were not so clear. Tekna supported the rector’s statements (which were generally negative towards boycott) The researchers association had made a statement towards topping the bombing, but not anything about any institutional measures.
We got a response from the rectors’ office, notifying us that “For information, the rector will prepare an S case related to the war in Gaza for the upcoming board meeting on 18 June. The board case will cover all the points NTL NTNU’s board points to.”
Finally – the strategy moving forward
I believe we have a real chance now, to get a decision at the board level against institutional collaborations with Israeli universities. I believe it is important now to keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak, and not squander away this possibility.
I know several of the board members are on our side. One is as mentioned a member of the academic network for Palestine, the new representative for administrative staff is also a member and a local representative of NTL at the faculty of natural science – sits just down the hall for me. He is on board, and based on the discussion on the board so are other internal representatives.
I hope the students here in particular work towards the student representatives.
The final question of course will be how we interpret the decisions from the board when they are made? Perhaps are they very clear? but perhaps will they be somewhat open to interpretation?
The end goal here is to stop the massacre of Palestinians in the short term and to secure Palestinians’ equal rights and human rights in all of historic Palestine in the long term.
Our contribution to this is putting international pressure on Israel. I therefore believe, that if there is a decision made that says no to making new institutional cooperations with Israeli institutions, we should TAKE A WIN so to speak. Even if it is not formulated exactly as we would like, or perhaps all the students’ demands are not met.
If it is reported and accepted widely that Norway’s largest university has decided on an academic boycott, this would go a long way towards further normalizing this stance, and make it much easier for other institutions to do the same.
I think this is the most important part of the struggle right here right now. At the same time, students like yourselves must be impatient, and keep the pressure up.
We need to find the most effective balance here, and that is also something I would appreciate to discuss with you today.